SCIENCE WEEK LETS KIDS LOOK AT PLANET; INSTRUCTORS SHARE EARTH LESSONS.Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer Students at Oak Hills Elementary School elementary school: see school. ripped apart planets and made some good impressions Tuesday as part of the school's science week. Members of Reid Chobanian's fifth-grade class spent part of their day building clay models of the Earth to help them understand the different materials that make up the planet's surface and insides. ``It's easier to learn about it if you have it right in front of you,'' said Oliver Harvey, 10. The exercise was part of the school's Science & Technology Week, which features rocket launches A rocket launch is the first phase of the flight of a rocket. For orbital spaceflights, or for launches into interplanetary space, rockets are launched from a launch pad, which is usually a fixed location on the ground but may also be on a floating platform such as the San Marco , paper airplane airplane, aeroplane, or aircraft, heavier-than-air vehicle, mechanically driven and fitted with fixed wings that support it in flight through the dynamic action of the air. contests and hands-on lessons like the planet-building exercise. The school's Parent-Teacher Association parent-teacher association Noun an organization consisting of the parents and teachers of school pupils formed to organize activities on behalf of the school paid for instructors from Science Adventures in Huntington Beach Huntington Beach, city (1990 pop. 181,519), Orange co., S Calif., on the Pacific coast, across from Santa Catalina Island, in an oil-producing area; inc. 1909. It manufactures aerospace vehicles, aircraft parts, optical instruments, and heat transfer equipment. to come and perform the special demonstrations for each class throughout the week. In the fifth-grade class, students first covered a white foam ball with red and purple clay. That layer, which represented the Earth's mantle, was then covered with yellow, orange and brown clay meant to represent the planet's crust. They topped off the multicolored ball with blue clay for water and green clay Green Clay (August 14, 1757 – October 31, 1828) was born in Virginia in Powhatan county. When he was a young boy he moved to Kentucky and became a surveyor, a job that made him a fortune. for the continents. Drake then helped the students slice their miniature planets in half to provide a look at the layers inside. ``Today I learned more about it,'' said Matt Millsfield, 11. Today the fifth-graders will peer through microscopes to search for paramecia, protozoa and amoebas in pond water. ``Look at them,'' said Bill McGovern, the student teacher for the class. ``They love it. It's a total cooperative learning cooperative learning Education theory A student-centered teaching strategy in which heterogeneous groups of students work to achieve a common academic goal–eg, completing a case study or a evaluating a QC problem. See Problem-based learning, Socratic method. environment. When you let the kids get involved, the teaching comes automatically.'' Science Adventures teachers tailor their lessons for various grade levels. ``I just find this is the most fun, actually,'' said Vicki Drake, one of four instructors with Science Adventures visiting Oak Hills this week. ``They get a full geology lesson.'' While the fifth-graders built and destroyed planets, the first-graders used clay in a different way. Instructor Kathleen Holt helped the youngsters create their own fossils. Each student received a bowl of clay, which they smoothed into a flat surface. The students then pressed tiny plastic dinosaurs, rubber snakes and shells into the clay to create impressions. Finally, the students spread plaster on top of the impressions, letting it dry to produce a white, raised-surface fossil imprint of the items they had pressed into the clay. CAPTION(S): 3 Photos PHOTO (1--Color) Jeffrey Schwartz Jeffrey Schwartz is a research professor at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) who is a major proponent of the idea that human will, intention or consciousness is nonmaterialistic and dualistic, possibly even being a "mental force" similar to that of gravity. is awe-struck during Tuesday's lecture on fossils at Oak Hills Elementary. (2--Color) Instructor Kathleen Holt from Science Adventures in Huntington Beach demonstrates how sediments affect the fossilization fos·sil·ize v. fos·sil·ized, fos·sil·iz·ing, fos·sil·iz·es v.tr. 1. To convert into a fossil. 2. To make outmoded or inflexible with time; antiquate. v.intr. of organisms as part of the school's Science & Technology Week. (3--Color) (Ran in Conejo Edition only) A first-grader takes a closer look at a piece of limestone that contains fossil fragments. Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News |
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